


The gift that keeps on giving

by StrangeNoise



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Birthday Presents, Established Relationship, Gift Giving, Kissing, M/M, Otis and Phoebe start a family, Otis is eating, Perkins is a bit of a grump, Pets, baby turtles, mentions of mating animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25244197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeNoise/pseuds/StrangeNoise
Summary: Perkins doesn't really care about his birthday or about getting gifts. But this year, Allen has something very special for him that fits right into their little family and holds some surprises for them in the future...
Relationships: Captain Allen/Richard Perkins
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

„I told you not to get me anything for my birthday”, Perkins groused as he followed Allen up the stairs and into their shared apartment. He was a man, who didn’t care much about birthdays in the first place and even less about his own. Accordingly, he didn’t mind not getting any gifts either. But no one seemed to listen to him. All of his partners had insisted on getting him something and Allen was no exception. Perkins was already a little annoyed by his subordinates, who had once again gotten him a box of his favorite chocolates even though by now he was almost threatening them each year not to get him anything. He had no idea how they even knew he enjoyed this particular brand but decided not to complain about it. While he kept reiterating that gifts were unnecessary, he didn’t want to seem ungrateful either.  
  
But while he felt he had gotten pretty lucky with just chocolates from his subordinates, Allen was known to go a little overboard when it came to gifts and therefore Richard was somewhat worried.   
  
“Too late”, David commented with a smile and unlocked the door, “But I’m sure you’ll like it. And if you don’t you can just regard it as both our possession and make me take care of it.” 

Perkins raised a brow as he stepped into the hallway after his partner. He had been with Allen for a little over two years now and yet he still couldn’t read him in moments like these. Richard was pretty sure it came with the territory of Allen leading a SWAT-team and needing a pretty good poker face in hostage situations but it still confused him. Of course, he knew he could trust his boyfriend not to do anything that would upset him. It was just that whenever Allen put on a face like this he was about to do something that would leave Perkins with a feeling that he could never repay the other.  
  
He toed off his shoes deep in thought, wondering what David could have possibly gotten him. In the meantime, the other man had already vanished somewhere inside the flat which did nothing to calm Perkins in the slightest.   
  
“You can go through into the living room and sit on the couch”, Allen called out and Perkins did what he was told, resigning himself to his fate with a sigh. He walked into the living room and sat down. On the other side of the room, he watched Allen’s turtle Otis slowly crawl through his tank. After a bit of a troublesome start, Perkins had long since been adopted into the family by the turtle and by now Otis was more of a shared pet than just Allen’s. While Richard tensely waited for his boyfriend to return, Otis turned and crawled back to the small bowl in the corner of his tank to chew on some lettuce Allen had left for him.  
  
“Are you ready?”, David called out from the hallway, then entered the room with a big box in his hands. The box had holes in it and Perkins eyed it suspiciously.  
  
“Happy Birthday, darling!”, Allen said with a smile and deposited the box in Richard’s lap before bending down and kissing him. Perkins allowed himself to be distracted by it for a moment or two before his worry about the contents of the box overtook him once more.   
  
He thanked Allen, then slowly began to unwrap the ribbon that had been tied around the box.  
  
“I hope you like it”, David said sheepishly, as if he was suddenly not so sure about that anymore himself, “I thought since you and Otis got along so well and we always joked about getting him a girlfriend…”  
  
“You didn’t!”, Perkins gasped and tore open the flaps on top of the box. As he peered inside, the black eyes of a turtle looked back up at him.  
  
“You’re crazy!”  
  
It was true that Perkins and Allen had often joked about finding a partner for Otis. And if he was being honest, Richard had envied his boyfriend’s bond with his turtle for a while now. Plus, he had wanted a pet himself for a long time but most animals either required a lot of attention, a companion, or were just not what Perkins was looking for in a pet. But the turtle would have Otis and didn’t need more care than both Perkins and Allen were willing and able to give.   
  
“So…do you like it?”, Allen asked after Richard had stared into the box wordlessly for several long moments. When he looked up, he could see that his partner actually looked rather nervous. Maybe Perkins’ continued protest had made him worried that he wouldn’t enjoy the gift no matter what.   
  
“I love it”, Perkins said and smiled up brightly at his partner, “I know I said I didn’t want you to get me anything but I think I can live with this pretty well.” Allen heaved a relieved sigh and when Perkins motioned for him to do so, bent down for another kiss.  
  
“You wanna do the honors and move her in with Otis?”, David asked after they had exchanged some more kisses.   
  
Perkins nodded and carefully lifted the turtle out of the box. Slowly, he carried it over to the aquarium and then gently lowered the animal into it. Once inside, the turtle immediately retreated into its shell, and Otis, too, looked quite suspicious of the new addition to his home. After a minute or two, however, he deemed it safe to approach the other animal. He crawled over to the turtle that was still hidden deep within its shell and began inspecting it. It didn’t take long for the new turtle to slowly poke its head out of the shell and observe Otis and its surroundings. After another minute, it finally came out of its shell fully and began sniffing around Otis. They seemed to get along well enough and that was a relief for Richard. He had already locked the turtle in his heart and had no idea what he would do if Otis didn’t like it.  
  
“Do you already know what you want to call her?”, David asked after they had silently watched the turtles for a while.  
  
“Phoebe”, Perkins replied without thinking. He had always loved the name. When he was younger, he had always thought of naming a child Phoebe. And even when his career choice and sexuality made a child less and less likely, he couldn’t let go of the name. Now, his turtle was to carry it and he decided it fit her quite well.  
  
“Oh wow, that’s a really cute name for a turtle”, David commented and pressed a kiss to Richard’s cheek, “But she’s a cute turtle too so it fits.”  
  
Perkins found himself agreeing and the two men watched the turtles get to know each other. At some point, Otis guided Phoebe over to his food bowl and they began chomping on the lettuce together. They made a picture of pure harmony. Richard couldn’t have been happier.  
  
“Thank you”, he said to David and smiled softly, “I never really liked any of the gifts I got but this one is just perfect.”  
  
Smiling at each other and their pets, the two men kept watching the turtles settle into their new life together. Little did they know that in a few months, Otis and Phoebe would have a gift for them in turn…


	2. Chapter 2

„Not again“, Captain David Allen groaned as he was torn from a peaceful slumber at a little past four in the morning. He had about two hours left until his alarm would go off, and he didn’t appreciate being woken this rudely.   
  
What had awoken him, hard to hear as it may be, was a sound Allen was all too familiar with. He’d had Otis for a long time, and by now, he was familiar with the turtle’s mating cycle. It was nothing they considered bothersome most of the time. For lack of a partner, Otis had often mounted one of David’s favorite crocs these past years until the man had decided to just leave it to the turtle for good. But thanks to Otis’ strange behavior, Allen was now very familiar with the sounds the reptile made when he was trying to mate something. As such, it wasn’t too much of an issue, but Allen was a light sleeper, and he wanted to go back to sleep as quickly as possible.   
  
With a muffled grunt, he turned around and clenched his eyes shut to force himself back to sleep. Just as he was drifting off, Allen wondered how Otis had gotten to the croc that was in a corner of the living room, given the turtle was secure in its cage. But his tired mind didn’t pay it much attention, and by the time Allen woke again, he had all but forgotten about the nightly incident.  


  
  
That was, until a few weeks later when he received an excited call from his partner Richard. It was Perkins’ day off, and he had decided to rearrange the turtles’ terrarium a little. When he called now, David was a little worried that something might be wrong with their pets. But the contrary was the case.  
  
“Phoebe laid eggs!”, Richard all but yelled into his phone, startling Allen and making him take his own device away from his ear.  
  
“What?!”  
  
“There’s six! Otis and Phoebe are going to be parents!”  
  
Allen had never heard Perkins this excited about anything. He would have commented on how cute he thought it was if he wasn’t so taken aback by the news. Suddenly, he remembered the noises he’d heard the other night and felt a brief flash of shame at having listened to their pets mating. But then again, it wasn’t like he’d listened voluntarily. If he could have chosen, Allen would have much preferred to stay asleep. But that wasn’t what was important now.  
  
“What do we do?”, he asked, counting on his partner to already have a plan in place. Richard was an excellent planner of all types of things. He didn’t disappoint.  
  
“I read some articles online and already ordered an incubator”, he told Allen excitedly, “Once that arrives I’ll carefully put the eggs in there and then we wait about two months. And then we’ll have however many of the babies hatch.”   
  
“I’m guessing that means we’ll need a new terrarium again...”  
  
“Absolutely.”  
  
Allen sighed. They had only just bought their current terrarium after Phoebe had come to live with them. That one already barely fit in their living room, and he had no idea how an even bigger one would fit. But David knew that he and Richard would do anything for their turtles and their offspring. They would make it work somehow.

And suddenly, Allen was excited. Otis had already been one year old when he had gotten him, so he’d never had to take care of a baby turtle. A quick google search showed that the smaller ones would be almost ridiculously cute and David just barely stopped himself from cooing over turtle babies at his place of work. From how Richard rattled off turtle facts he had researched in the past hour, Allen felt like his partner was equally as excited and what had seemed like a tedious thing to take care of mere minutes ago now felt like a fulfilling adventure the two men could embark on together.  
  
“So, now that our turtles are going to have children of their own, what does that make us?” Allen wondered once Perkins was done telling him all the things they had to do to prepare for the babies, “Their Parents? Grandparents? Uncles?” On the other end of the line, Perkins laughed.  
  
“I’m sure my four-year-old niece won’t mind sharing her uncle with a bunch of small turtles”, he said, and now it was Allen’s turn to laugh. Then, he heard the doorbell ring in the distance.  
  
“That’s gotta be the incubator”, Perkins commented, and some rustling and steps were heard on his end of the line, “I’ll go set that up, and we can talk more about this later, okay?”  
  
“Yeah, sure”, David replied with a laugh, “Just don’t go completely into mother-hen mode until I get back home.”  
  
But Perkins had already hung up.  


  
  
  
The following weeks were exciting and very uneventful at the same time. Richard had put the eggs in an incubator like he had read to do online and was monitoring the temperature once every morning and once every evening. Sometimes Allen took a curious look at the six eggs, but since nothing really happened, it wasn’t very entertaining. Otis and Phoebe didn’t seem bothered by the fact their eggs had been dug up and taken elsewhere but Allen figured in nature they would just bury their eggs somewhere and wait for results, so their indifference wasn’t too weird.   
  
About a week before the first batch of eggs was supposed to hatch, Phoebe laid another five eggs. After several long hours of careful consideration, Allen and Perkins decided not to buy another incubator and get rid of the eggs instead. It would be difficult enough to deal with up to eight turtles, six of which would be babies – something neither Richard nor David had dealt with before. But they agreed to hatch more eggs the next year, should this year’s brood be successful. Maybe they could give them to Richard’s niece or some of David’s colleagues, who always cooed over pictures of Otis.   
  
  
And then, it was finally time for the baby turtles to hatch. Everything was prepared. They had bought a bigger terrarium that they had already moved Otis and Phoebe to, so they could get used to it. Their old terrarium would be the home for the babies until they were old enough to move in with their parents.   
  
Allen had considered taking a day or two off for when the turtles came into the world. It was silly, of course, but somehow he wanted to be there to see it happen. In the end, he got lucky, though. Allen and Perkins both had a weekend off when life came to the eggs in the incubator. It began with barely-there movement early on Friday night. Several times both David and Richard thought they had imagined it until it was too obvious to ignore. Then, they briefly considered staying awake to see the babies hatch. But when midnight rolled around and not much more had happened, the two men decided to go to sleep after all. They both laid awake for a long time, though, worried and excited in equal measure. More than once, Allen wished he had the calm of the babies’ actual parents, who had been sleeping soundly for most of the day.  
  


The next morning, the first two turtles were slowly crawling about the incubator. Allen felt like his heart was going to burst with all the affection he already felt towards the small creatures. Especially when Richard picked them up to put them in the terrarium, and both turtles fit into his hand easily with more than enough room to spare. Most of Saturday after this was spent watching either the incubator or the baby turtles. Both activities seemed equally exciting even though not much happened in either enclosure. At some point, Allen carried the terrarium over to Otis’ and Phoebe’s new home to show them their children – but the older turtles were entirely unimpressed.   
  
By Saturday evening, another two turtles had fought their way out of their egg and joined their siblings in the terrarium. Movement in the other two eggs had stopped a while ago – if it had even ever begun, neither Allen nor Perkins were sure about that. So, with heavy hearts, the two men decided at around midnight that there was no chance the other turtles would hatch. It was sad that they didn’t get the six babies they had been hoping for, but Allen figured they could be glad to have the four that had hatched.   
Everything felt calm and at peace as David and Richard watched the babies slowly crawl around the terrarium. 

  
  
“So…what should we call them?”, Perkins asked after a few moments of silence. It wasn’t something they had really thought about before since there had been no way of knowing if and how many of the turtles would actually make it. Now, Allen was at a loss.  
  
“You sound like you already have an idea…”  
  
“Oh, definitely”, Richard replied, and a smile spread on his face. He pointed at one of the turtles, the smallest with a big black spot on its shell. “This one’s going to be Darling. I already know she’s going to be one.”

“Then I say we call this one Lil Missy”, Allen suggested, gesturing towards a second turtle. It was slightly taller than Darling and had already made it a habit to crawl all over her siblings to get where it wanted to go first. Perkins pulled a face at that name but didn’t comment on it. Allen had a feeling that his partner knew he was just going from his ideas because he had none of his own. But as long as the turtles had nice names, he figured there was no harm in it.  
  
“This one will be Apricot.” Perkins’ tone was decisive as he pointed out the third turtle. Its shell was a little lighter than that of the others. Allen nodded in agreement. Apricot was a very sweet name for a turtle. And it gave him an idea for the name of the last baby.  
  
“Then this one can be Peach”, he said, looking at the fourth turtle, “People will think she’s from a Super Mario game. And it fits with Apricot.”   
  
Perkins sighed. 

“The kids really got silly names compared to their parents…” It was obvious he still liked those names, though. Especially after he pulled Allen in for an eager kiss after which he muttered: “You’re so silly sometimes. I love it.”   
  
David sat there, smiling from ear to ear. The two men spent about another hour just watching the babies crawl about their terrarium, wondering what they would look like in a few months and what their character would be. Allen had considered their little family perfect before, but now that it had gotten bigger, it felt even sweeter. He wrapped an arm tightly around Richard and pressed a kiss to his cheek as they kept watch over the babies and wondered when exactly his life had become so perfect…


End file.
